The 1993 movie Emilio Estevez wishes he’d never made: “Not well-paced or well-played”
Once upon a time, Emilio Estevez was pegged as one of Hollywood’s brightest and fastest-rising young stars, but then again, so was every member of the ‘Brat Pack’, and very few of them lived up to the hype.
Ironically, it was the actors who weren’t official members but travelled in the same circles in the early 1980s who found the longevity and success that eluded the core group, with Tom Cruise, Sean Penn, Nicolas Cage, Kevin Bacon, Robert Downey Jr, and the Cusack siblings among them.
Rob Lowe and Demi Moore did alright for themselves in the long run, but, with the greatest of respect, the same can’t really be said for Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, and Ally Sheedy. In fact, by the end of the ’80s, Estevez wasn’t even the fastest-rising young star in his family, with Charlie Sheen taking that honour.
In his defence, it was at least partially by design. Estevez, like many of his ‘Brat Pack’ cohorts, loathed the term and the increased publicity and scrutiny that came with it, which played a huge part in his diversification into filmmaking, and it’s not like he had any interest in becoming an A-lister anyway.
However, during his run of hits that included The Outsiders, The Breakfast Club, St Elmo’s Fire, Young Guns, and others, he sparred with Richard Dreyfuss in John Badham’s 1987 buddy cop flick, Stakeout. Not the subgenre’s most inspired entry, but another hit nonetheless, recouping its budget four and a half times over at the box office.
A profitable genre film will almost always lead to a sequel, but by the time the follow-up, imaginatively titled Another Stakeout, was released in 1993, nobody gave a shit. The ship had sailed, audiences had moved on, and the second instalment crashed and burned at the box office and with critics.
Reflecting on how Badham influenced his behind-the-camera career, Estevez had a confession to make. “We did both the Stakeout films, although we should have only done the first one,” he admitted. “Because the second one was not well-placed or well-played. But I did learn a lot of technique from John.”
He was right: Another Stakeout was neither well-paced nor well-played, with the picture seemingly determined to cross every buddy cop archetype off the list throughout its running time. Not every box office winner needs a sequel, and it was definitely one of them, with everyone going through the motions.
It may not be the worst thing that Estevez has ever appeared in, thanks largely to the fact that Stephen King’s infamous directorial debut Maximum Overdrive exists, but it’s definitely hovering around at the bottom of the barrel.
